Understanding Time Management in Creative Work #
If you’re struggling to meet a deadline, it often indicates an underlying problem. It’s worth analyzing what exactly is causing the bottleneck, as it’s rare for a single task to take many hours. When this happens, after about 30 minutes or a couple of hours, I usually either ask for help or sit down with a piece of paper to try to understand what’s not working. Typically, the issue lies in either the technical part, the visual aspect, unclear comments, or simply fatigue, indicating that I need to take a walk and rest.
I will eventually get it done one way or another, but for now, I can switch to another task until the current one becomes clearer.
20 minute rule #
Some studios use the 20 minute rule. If you stuck with a task for 20 minute you need to ask a lead or a supervisor. In case you are a freelancer reach out to a forum, your software support page, or take a paper with a pen if it’s something creating and you need to distract your brain. The idea behind the 20-minute rule is that tasks should be broken down into very small chunks. Our brains cannot function optimally for more than two hours at a time; beyond that, productivity decreases.